Does anyone have a good source for the physical dimensions of various medieveal buildings?
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They're a lot smaller than most people think
Well yeah. I mean, the universe is expanding. That's why medieval people were smaller too.
SCIENCE!
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Or you write house rules to allow fighting in cramped fighting conditions, which I am happy to do when it comes to that.
So, do you have a source? It would be expecially useful to have information on the size of the external silhouette of buildings.
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Does anyone have a good source for the physical dimensions of various medieveal buildings?
It varied depending on period and whether the house was in town or in the countryside. Village houses were pretty small and rectangular, dirt floor, one level sometimes with beds in the loft (something like 12' x 20'). Out-buildings where used for shops, farms animals etc.
Farms in some region they where bigger and housed extended families, including the pigs, goats and other farm animals. With time they got quite big with many attached out-buildings.
Town houses of the low middle age were much bigger, three to five stories high with shape matching the existent streets. Most public buildings where long and narrow to allow more natural light. Town houses were narrow and not very deep, like 20' x 20'.
You should have a look at the Encyclopedie Medievale from Violet le Duc if you can find it (I believe it was translated in English). Also, renaissance buildings where very similar to those of the low middle age, at least for the private buildings, and it is easier to find source about that era.
Unfortunately, most sources will cite examples of public buildings, castles and cathedrals; its hard to find info about the common-folk housing.
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I would suggest that for these purposes, game play considerations are far more important things to consider than historical accuracy.
But one can take clues from historical observation, usually to keep to the genre. Things like "peasant house didn't have a chimney but an open fire at the center of their house" or "high medieval castles didn't have a dedicated dining room" can help to set the right atmosphere. Research shouldn't be discouraged even if gameplay can sometimes take precedence.
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If you want to research go for it...
That's the idea, but your first response to the OP sounded like "don't bother, it's not going to work".
Laurefindel, thanks for the potential source. The dimensions you suggest sound pretty close to my expectations.
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LazarX
1. This is "Gamer Talk", not "Pathfinder RPG General Discussion" or "Advice", so the apparent assumption that the system is Pathfinder isn't much needed. As it happens, it is going to be largely theater of the mind style 5e, where there is a chunk of room to decide how and when to make cramped conditions matter.
2. Interior combat is unfun and unpopular with people throughout history. If my players don't like it, they can avoid engaging in it in all sorts of ways, from choosing a more advantageous place to fight their battles, to no taking jobs that are likely to get them into battles in cramped locations. They can even find ways to turn it to their advantage.
3.Constraints built into encounter locations through historical accuracy can open up or suggest new and interesting. From tactical decisions to hold a doorway as a chock point, through to the rogue risking darting through an adjoin room to attack the enemy in the 5' wide corridor from behind.
4. My setting lets me have my cake, and eat it too, thanks to different aspects of the setting work by different rules, so yeah, there are going to be plents of places with the kind of monumental architecture often depicted in DnD, only they won't be peasant housing in a fuedal society.
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2. Interior combat is unfun and unpopular with people throughout history. If my players don't like it, they can avoid engaging in it in all sorts of ways, from choosing a more advantageous place to fight their battles, to no taking jobs that are likely to get them into battles in cramped locations. They can even find ways to turn it to their advantage.You're mixing two different things here. Whether something is popular or a good idea in the real world has little to do with whether it will be fun in a game.
In fact, if something is advantageous in game but isn't fun to play out, that's a serious problem with the game. Players will be pushed to do it to gain advantage, even though they're having less fun playing. A chokepoint might let one character beat many enemies, but if it means only one player actually gets to play ...
First off, fun is probably not a good term to use in regards to games design. It is basically a useless term. For brevity lets use the "8 kinds of fun" model. The way fun is usually used on these boards is "fulfilment of power fantasy." Now sure, it won't do that. For people who can only enjoy a game that is stimulating that, it will be unfun, and I am aware that there are many people on these boards which claim that fulfilment of their powerfantasy is the only thing that they care about,(or at the very least that if they arn't getting that, they arn't having a good time). Fortunately I don't have players who fall into that catagory. So, I don't really need to worry about there desires. There is also plenty of material out there for people with that attitude too, so it isn't like by making stuff that fills a niche I and my players enjoy, I am forcing anyone else to enjoy it.
But there are other types of "fun", such as Sensation, Narrative, Cchallenge, Fellowship, and Expression.
A tough, indoor fight in cramped conditions can furfil all of those areas:
- a player may take pleasure in the description sense description of being "pressed in so close to the enemy that they can smell their fetid breath, so close that they have to abandon their sword and turn to their dagger instead.; So close that they feel the dagger grinding against a rib as they slide the blade in".
- A player may enjoy the Narrative construction of a set piece, and how it forces their characters into an unpleasant situation, and battle through it to overcome adversity.
- For many players, a tough fight is a good fight. Challenge = fun.
- A player may enjoy the sense of Fellowship that comes from overcoming a challenging and unpleasant thing.
- A scene like this gives a player who wants stuff to work with, to make their descriptions of their characters actions interesting. Be it the ways they use their weapons in the close quarters, or how their characters feel and act in the aftermath.
Now if the mechanic is slow clunky and is of low ultility, that is a totally different thing. But I'm talking about something relatively simple like.
When your fighting in close quarters, I define how many people it is possible to engage. If a second person wants to engage a target, that is possible, but:
- both PCs gain a point of fatigue at the end of the combat.
- both PCs gain disadvantage of their attacks and dex saves(this rule does not apply to halflings, gnomes, or individuals wielding daggers who is in close quarters. Halfings or gnomes using daggers in close quarters gain advantage.)
- Who the NPC attack is decided at random, but a PC can take on a fatigue to ensure they are the subject of the attack.
With those rules on a 3by5 note card on the table for reference, a close quarters battle suddenly becomes a very different prospect to a brawl in the Piazza.
Beyond that, you get into the realms of systems designed to evoke specific moods. For instance, you might well want to design a siege or mass battle system, where your character in a soldier and not a commander, to field terrifying and unfairly arbitatry, if the game is about the horrors of war.
A chokepoint might let one character beat many enemies, but if it means only one player actually gets to play ...
Unless you build your encounter to provide other thing for a character to be doing. Such as:
-finding a way to get the portcullis to close, cutting off the enemies. -Firing, casting magic, or attacking over the shoulder of the guy holding the choke point.
-Healing the guy in the choke point.
-unlocking the door at the other end of the corridor to allow an escape, or working out how to open a portal.
-triggering traps in the corridor to attack the monsters.
-opening the trapped cabinet that contains your adventures objecting, so you can start to retreat
-killing a powerful monster or NPC.
-locating a tome which contains the evidence you need to prove your noble title, because the bad guys are going to burn down the library.
And that is just scratching the surface
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If the occasion arises, I strongly reccomend you to take a visit at Palazzo Davanzati in Florence, Italy: it was very ispirational for me and added a lot to my home campaigns in terms of description of building (especially bigger ones).
I'll look into it Giuseppe, thanks.
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If the occasion arises, I strongly reccomend you to take a visit at Palazzo Davanzati in Florence, Italy: it was very ispirational for me and added a lot to my home campaigns in terms of description of building (especially bigger ones).
I am interested. I visited Florence, but not this building. Would you please detail a bit more what worked for you ?
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If the occasion arises, I strongly reccomend you to take a visit at Palazzo Davanzati in Florence, Italy: it was very ispirational for me and added a lot to my home campaigns in terms of description of building (especially bigger ones).I am interested. I visited Florence, but not this building. Would you please detail a bit more what worked for you ?
It's a perfect example of residential architecture of the XIVth century. It shows the rooms' disposition of what was a minor noble house of the time, the furnishings, the tapestries and even the paintings on the wall. What striked me is that it was very different from what I was used to think about medieval building, particularly in terms of the organization of the inner spaces, much more "vertical" than i thought. You can easily google "Palazzo Davanzati" and take a look at some pictures: you can see that there were inner pits, inner stairs, how were the bathroom arranged, how was conceived a bedroom and so on. Helped me a lot in detailing dungeons, particularly urban ones.
The three most important factors in home design are location, location and location.
If it's a place that gets either very cold, or has long winters, homes will be larger, but livable space will probably still be small. Heating the home requires energy, so the smaller the family space, the more efficient it becomes. The not heated space allows for more storage, either of things like various crops that can be stored, or for livestock.
In a subtropical region it is warmer but still seasonal, livestock will probably be able to survive outside during the winter. There might still be storage buildings, depending on types of crops grown, but these buildings will be near the house instead of part of the house.
Tropical regions don't have winter/summer seasons. They have wet/dry seasons. Since temperature doesn't change that massively, whatever can survive outside can usually do so year-round. Homes will be smaller, used primarily to provide shelter from heavy rain.
If you want the homes in your game to feel real, give them design features based on where they are. How have the people adapted to the environment around them?